| Nukaga: tried to pin the blame on his secretary | ||||||
Japan’s ruling political party has been hit by a triple whammy of financial scandals just when the economy needs strong leaders.
Fukushiro Nukaga, a senior member of the cabinet and tipped as a future prime minister, is the third leading MP to go in two weeks. Given that he was in charge of economic policy, it seems Japan’s problems matter less to him than saving his skin.
It was not certain Nukaga would quit, even when it was revealed that he took ¥15 million ($135,000) from insurer KSD. His way out was not the traditional response to a lost reputation – disembowelling himself in ritual seppuku – but instead to blame his secretary.
Nukaga swears his secretary, not him, received the money and that he returned it as soon as he found it. The opposition says it was received in two tranches at the insurer’s offices, so it could not have been an accident and was in return for inserting comments in then prime minister Keizo Obuchi’s keynote speech to parliament last year.
A leading Liberal Democrat is charged with accepting ¥20 million from KSD in return for asking questions in parliament. The LDP leader in the upper house, also said to have benefited from KSD, has resigned while KSD’s former chairman faces embezzlement charges.
Meanwhile Japan’s economy needs decisions that would be difficult even if the team were united. With the election looming it seems unlikely Taro Aso, Nukaga’s successor, will dare to take action that might put Japan back on its feet.
